It is well known to collect various types of recyclable materials, such as metal cans, newspapers and glass jars and bottles. Generally, these materials are collected by having home owners or apartment dwellers place such materials in adjacent but separate piles, such as placing the cans and jars in respective bags or baskets and the newspapers in paper sacks adjacent to the sacks or baskets of cans and jars. A truck and/or trailer is typically driven past a home or an apartment where such materials have been collected and segregated, and the driver of the truck and/or trailer or his helper loads the segregated materials by hand in separate bins in the truck and/or trailer. Then the truck and/or trailer is driven to the next home or apartment and the collection step is repeated.
The truck or trailer typically has an open top which is at least five feet above the ground level. A workman loading the truck or trailer must lift the recyclable materials at least this five feet distance to cause the materials to be dumped into the truck or trailer. This requires a considerable amount of effort which causes fatigue and saps the strength of the workmen during a normal workday.
This procedure usually requires one or two workmen, one to drive the vehicle and/or load and one to ride along with the vehicle and do the manual labor of picking up the recyclable materials and loading them in the respective bins of the truck or trailer. This procedure also is time consuming and labor intensive and requires frequent unloading of the truck or trailer in which the recyclable materials are placed because of the limited volume of the truck or trailer.
Attempts have been made to provide for improved vehicles for collecting such materials. For the most part, such attempts have been unsatisfactory for one or more reasons. One such attempt is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,242,953, wherein a garbage collecting truck has two separate compartments for receiving recyclable materials. One compartment is adapted to receive paper, fabric and the like while the other compartment is adapted to receive non-recyclable wastes. Thus, the truck is not designed to segregate the recyclable materials. A first compartment of the truck is inclined forwardly of the truck, there being a piston and cylinder assembly for use in pressing waste into the front end of the first compartment. The truck has a second compartment and a piston and cylinder assembly to compress the waste material in the second compartment. An access door is provided to allow the materials to be forced out of the second compartment. The main drawback of the truck of this patent is the fact that only one compartment is provided for recyclable material. Thus, recyclable materials cannot be kept segregated from each other in the first compartment.
Because of the problems associated with conventional techniques and with attempts to improve the process of collecting recyclable waste materials, a need exists for improvements in recyclable material collection procedures. The present invention satisfies this need.